Addicted Parents Send Kids Mixed Messages

Prescription drug abuse often leads children to fall into the same addictions as their parents.

Dr. Mary Cummings, a marriage and family therapists, said prescriptions pills are impacting relationships.

“We're seeing more and more couples coming through the door with multiple addictions,” Cummings said. “We have various levels of addictions. Not only are both parents addicted to one thing or another – usually there's two or three addictions running at the same time – they're trying to get their kids to stop using drugs and alcohol, which as you might guess, doesn't work very well.”

Cummings is also an addictions specialist.

“I try to get across to them that there's no life more important to influence your children than you,” she said. “Your modeling about addictive behaviors and your demonstrating that you can cope with life on life's terms without some kind of substance is essential. This is a hard sell, as you might guess.”

What her some of her clients consider normal behavior is anything but, Cummings said.

“We're seeing people who consider it to be normal behavior to drink several drinks a night, mix and match with all kinds of pills, put themselves to sleep with Ambien and get back up in the morning and start it all over again,” she said. “The children in the home are having a hard time understanding why this isn't normal. Then when they get in trouble for the very thing that Mom and Dad are doing, it becomes a double message for sure and a convoluted mess.”

She said many of her young patients with addictions come from good homes and are otherwise “not struggling at all.”

Cummings said she speaks with her addicted patients about “the modeling in the home, what kind of messages has he gotten, and how has he gotten into this mess.”